1,062 entries categorized "Syria"

May 18, 2016

The Washington Post reports despite pledging to withdraw the majority of its forces from Syria in March, the Russian military remains firmly entrenched throughout the country and is even continuing to expand in some areas, the Pentagon said Wednesday. Army Col. Steve Warren, a spokesman for the U.S.-led campaign against the Islamic State, told reporters Tuesday that Russian capabilities are “almost identical” to what they were before President Vladimir Putin’s announcement that his country’s forces would soon be returning home.

The New York Times reports Secretary of State John Kerry and his Russian counterpart, Sergey V. Lavrov, said on Tuesday that if President Bashar al-Assad of Syria continues to block access of humanitarian aid to besieged cities and towns, they were prepared to help the World Food Program airdrop food and emergency supplies. The very fact that they had to threaten the airdrops — which are expensive and often inaccurate — amounted to an admission of how little progress has been made in achieving either the lasting cease-fire or the regular humanitarian relief that European and Arab nations, along with Iran, laid out as the first steps toward a broader peace agreement.

May 17, 2016

BBC News reports world powers have agreed to try to turn the crumbling partial truce in Syria into a more comprehensive ceasefire. The International Syria Support Group (ISSG) warned that the unravelling of the 11-week cessation of hostilities could lead to a return to all-out war. Those persistently breaching the truce could be excluded from it. The ISSG also said that from June the UN would begin air drops of aid for all areas in need if ground access to besieged areas continued to be denied. Diplomats want to encourage the opposition to resume indirect negotiations on a political settlement to end the five-year conflict, which has killed more than 250,000 people.

May 12, 2016

Al Jazeera reports Syrian and Russian air strikes have targeted rebel-held areas in Aleppo province, killing and injuring several people, as rebels captured a village in Homs province, monitoring group says. The regime warplanes aided by Russian fighters targeted several neighbourhoods in Aleppo city, sources told Al Jazeera on Thursday. No information on casualties was available, but sources said several people were killed and injured. Warplanes targeted al-Zahraa and al-Maysar shortly after the truce ended at midnight on Wednesday, the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said on Thursday.

The New York Times reports the Islamic State calls them “inghimasi” — zealous foot soldiers who intend to fight to their deaths. And as the American-backed coalition has reclaimed territory from the group in Iraq and Syria, that fervor has kept prisoners from being much of a problem: The shooting only stops when almost every Islamic State fighter has been killed. But that could change as the coalition moves toward the Islamic State’s largest urban strongholds — Mosul, Iraq, and Raqqa, Syria — raising a potential problem for the United States. If the coalition is successful and thousands of ordinary members of a collapsing Islamic State have nowhere left to retreat, will they start to surrender in greater numbers? And if so, who will be responsible for imprisoning them?

May 10, 2016

Reuters reports the Islamic State said on Tuesday it had downed a Syrian army helicopter in a desert area of central Syria where heavy fighting is going on, the militant group and a monitor said. Amaq, a news agency associated with Islamic State, said the helicopter was shot down near in the Palmyra desert between Homs and Palmyra city. The Syrian army has not commented on the report but had earlier said its war planes pounded Islamic State defenses in the area and hit their convoys in the vicinity of the Shaer gas field, north of Huweisis, which the militants took over last Thursday.

May 09, 2016

Al Jazeera reports the Turkish government has made the unusual move of confirming that its special forces entered Syria on Saturday, on what it called a "reconnaissance mission." Al Jazeera's Stefanie Dekker, reporting from Gaziantep near the Turkish-Syrian border, said it was highly unusual for the Turkish government to announce a special forces operation conducted outside the country's borders. "Perhaps they were trying to give a message by announcing something so secretive," she said. She said the operation was probably an attempt to stop the almost daily attacks on Kilis, a Turkish border province which has been hit by rockets from areas in Syria controlled by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant group (ISIL, also known as ISIS).

BBC News reports a deal is reported to have been reached to end a mutiny at a prison in Syria by hundreds of mostly political detainees. Sheikh Nawwaf al-Melhem, a leader of the officially-tolerated opposition People's Party, told the BBC he had brokered an agreement between the state and inmates at Hama Central Prison. The prison's power and water supplies had now been restored, he said. Interior Minister Mohammed Shaar said the situation at the prison was normal and denied there had been any disorder.

May 04, 2016

The Associated Press reports an international coalition leading the military campaign against the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq agreed Wednesday to accelerate their contributions but did not publicly specify what those would be. The group also called on Iraqi leaders to reconcile political differences. A day after a U.S. Navy SEAL was killed in small arms fire with IS forces, U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter said that as the war intensifies, "these risks will continue."

The Washington Post reports U.S. and Russian military officials will sit in the same room 24 hours a day and jointly pore over maps and intelligence to monitor cease-fire violations in Syria under a new system they hope will save a fast-collapsing truce, Secretary of State John F. Kerry said Tuesday. Under the new arrangement, which Kerry said could be finalized by Wednesday, lines will be drawn in and around Aleppo, scene of the heaviest recent fighting, to prevent new incursions or attacks from any party in the Syrian civil war.

May 03, 2016

BBC News reports Russia's foreign minister says a unilateral truce declared by the Syrian military could be extended to the city of Aleppo "in the next few hours." Sergei Lavrov said Russia was working with the UN and US to include Aleppo in the "regime of calm" that has covered Damascus and Latakia since Saturday. But Lavrov warned that rebels would have to leave areas where allied jihadist militants were being targeted. More than 250 people have been killed in Aleppo in the past 10 days.

May 02, 2016

The Washington Post reports the United States and Russia are studying possible ways to separate rival forces in Syria, delineating potential “safe zones” for opposition fighters amid renewed violence that has threatened to fully collapse a two-month-old cease-fire attempt. Secretary of State John F. Kerry — in Geneva on Monday for emergency meetings on the crisis — said that the next 24 to 48 hours will be crucial in determining whether the plan will work. “I don’t want to make any promises that can’t be kept,” he said.

April 28, 2016

Reuters reports Islamic State earns millions of dollars a month running car dealerships and fish farms in Iraq, making up for lower oil income after its battlefield losses, Iraqi judicial authorities said on Thursday. Security experts once estimated the ultra-radical Islamist group's annual income at $2.9 billion, much of it coming from oil and gas installations in Iraq and Syria. The U.S.-led coalition has targeted Islamic State's financial infrastructure, using air strikes to reduce its ability to extract, refine and transport oil and so forcing fighters to reportedly take significant pay cuts.

Reuters reports the Turkish military returned fire on Islamic State positions in northern Syria on Thursday, killing 11 members of the militant group, military sources said. The military returned fire after its artillery near the border town of Karkamis was hit by mortars, the sources said. Meanwhile, brawls between lawmakers from Turkey's ruling AK Party and the pro-Kurdish opposition have delayed efforts to pass legislation on a migration deal with the European Union, but the country's EU minister said a deadline next week would still be met.

The New York Times reports a government airstrike on a hospital in the insurgent-held section of the Syrian city of Aleppo killed at least 27 people, including three children and six staff members, health workers and witnesses said Thursday. On the other side of the divided city, in the government-held section, insurgent mortar attacks killed at least eight people, most of them civilians, said officials at a hospital where casualties were streaming in at midday. Over the past week, the Syrian government and its Russian allies have sharply stepped up airstrikes on rebel-held areas in Aleppo, and rebels have increased shelling of government-held areas.

April 27, 2016

The Washington Post reports barely two months after the United States and Russia joined together to forge a partial cease-fire in Syria, cooperation between them, including on a long-term political solution to that country’s civil war, is rapidly eroding. Russia this week accused the administration of “appeasing” its regional partners by ignoring the presence of terrorists among opposition forces it backs in the fight against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Noting President Obama’s decision to send an additional 250 Special Operations forces to the separate war against the Islamic State in Syria, despite pledges of no U.S. “boots on the ground,” a foreign ministry spokesman asked sarcastically whether they were deploying barefoot.

April 26, 2016

Al Jazeera reports at least 35 people, including eight children and five rescue workers have been killed in the Syrian city of Aleppo and its outskirts in attacks carried out by the government forces and the rebels, a monitoring group says. The rebel shelling killed at least 19 people and the government air strikes killed at least 11 on Tuesday, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. Five civil defense workers - known as the "White Helmets" - were also killed by the air strikes and a rocket attack on their center in a separate incident in the rebel-held town of Atarib, on the outskirts of Aleppo.

The Washington Post reports the flow of foreign fighters into Iraq and Syria has dropped from roughly 2,000 a month down to 200 within the past year, according to the Pentagon, which says the waning numbers are further proof of the Islamic State’s declining stature. The declining number of fighters is a direct result of strikes that have targeted the terror group’s infrastructure, Air Force Maj. Gen. Peter E. Gersten, the deputy commander for operations and intelligence for the U.S.-led campaign against the Islamic State, said Tuesday.

April 25, 2016

The Washington Post reports President Obama outlined plans Monday to bolster U.S. Special Operations forces in Syria, raising their number to as many as 300 troops in a move he said was needed to keep pressure on the Islamic State. The president noted gains made by the current 50 special operators in missions to advise and assist local forces batting the Islamic State, which holds territory in Syria and Iraq. “Given the success, I’ve approved the deployment of up to 250 additional U.S. personnel . . . to keep up this momentum,” Obama said in a speech that also focused broadly on European issues.

April 22, 2016

The Associated Press reports the U.N. envoy for Syria says the current round of Geneva peace talks will continue until "probably Wednesday, as originally planned," but that the two sides are "extremely polarized" and a cease-fire is in trouble. Staffan de Mistura says the hobbled peace process needs support from a group of countries known as the International Syria Support Group led by the U.S. and Russia, and calls on that body to reconvene at ministerial level. The opposition High Negotiations Committee pulled out of formal, though not "technical" talks, earlier this week, as it accused President Bashar Assad's government of violating the cease-fire and hampering the flow of aid to besieged areas.

The Washington Post reports the U.S. military on Friday acknowledged killing 20 civilians and wounding 11 more in recent airstrikes in Iraq and Syria, more than doubling the number of civilian fatalities it has admitted causing in the military campaign against the Islamic State. The nine errant airstrikes occurred between Sept. 10 and Feb. 2, U.S. Central Command said in a statement. Six of the strikes occurred in Iraq, and three occurred in Syria, U.S. military officials said. “We deeply regret the unintentional loss of life and injuries resulting from those strikes and express our deepest sympathies to the victims’ families and those affected,” the military’s statement said.

The New York Times reports Najim Laachraoui, one of the two suicide bombers who attacked Brussels Airport last month, has been identified by former Islamic State hostages as one of their captors in Syria, a lawyer for several of the hostages said on Friday. Marie-Laure Ingouf, a lawyer for Nicolas Hénin and Pierre Torres, two of the four French journalists who were first detained in 2013 by the Islamic State in Syria, said that the former hostages had identified one of their captors as Mr. Laachraoui, who used the name Abu Idris at the time. In the latest issue of the Islamic State’s online magazine Dabiq, Laachraoui was identified by the nom de guerre Abu Idris al-Baljiki.

April 21, 2016

Reuters reports the Russian military said on Thursday it had completed the demining of the ancient part of the Syrian city of Palmyra, recaptured by Syrian and Russian forces in late March from militants. "Comrade commander-in-chief! As of today, the task of demining the architectural and historical part of Palmyra has been fully completed," Russian engineer troops commander Yuri Stavitski told President Vladimir Putin via video link from Palmyra. He said Russian troops would continue demining Palmyra's residential area.

April 20, 2016

The Washington Post reports Russia and Syrian forces have shifted troops and artillery back toward northern Syria in recent weeks, the latest sign that a fraying cease-fire in the country could collapse completely, U.S. defense officials said Tuesday. The troop movements, first reported by the Wall Street Journal, come after forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad retook areas around the city of Palmyra from the Islamic State late last month. The Syrian troops, backed by Iranian ground troops and Russian airstrikes, achieved a strategic and political victory over the terrorist group, an indication that Assad and his allies were shifting military resources to fight the Islamic State, rather than Syrian opposition groups, after the cessation of hostilities announced in February.

April 18, 2016

Reuters reports the mainstream Syrian opposition asked the United Nations to halt peace talks on Monday and rebel groups launched a new offensive against government forces, accusing the world body of bias in favor of President Bashar al-Assad. The opposition's coordinator at the Geneva talks, Riad Hijab, said earlier it was unacceptable for talks to go on if the government and its allies pushed on with sieges and bombing civilian areas, echoing recent criticism of government offensives elsewhere. Only three delegates met U.N. envoy Staffan de Mistura for talks on Monday, instead of the usual 15, after a letter signed by unspecified "armed revolutionary factions" said de Mistura and the government were trying to put forward "half-solutions".

April 14, 2016

BBC News reports Russian president Vladimir Putin has said the Syrian army is able to carry out "serious offensive operations" despite a drawdown of Russian forces. He said Syrian government forces had achieved some recent important victories, including in Palmyra. Russia began its campaign of air strikes in Syria last September in support of the government. Speaking in an annual televised phone-in, he also said he backed a plan for armed monitors in east Ukraine. He said Ukraine's President Petro Poroshenko had recently proposed stepping up the presence of monitors from the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) on the separation line between government and separatist forces, and arming them to enforce a ceasefire.

April 13, 2016

BBC News reports the UN is to start a new round of indirect talks in Geneva aimed at ending the conflict in Syria. UN special envoy Staffan de Mistura has warned that there is an urgent need for the government and opposition to take steps towards a political transition. But correspondents say the outlook is bleak, with fighting in Aleppo province threatening a fragile six-week truce. Meanwhile parliamentary polls, dismissed by the opposition as a sham, are under way in government-held areas. Russia, a staunch ally of President Bashar al-Assad, has said the vote does not go against the peace talks and is in line with the constitution.

April 11, 2016

Reuters reports the Syrian army was on Monday reported to be sending reinforcements to Aleppo, where renewed fighting is threatening a fragile truce in the run-up to the next round of peace talks. Underlining the conflict's regional dimensions, Iranian media announced the first deaths of members of its regular army in Syria, a week after Tehran said army commandos had been deployed in support of Damascus. Iran's military support has so far mostly been provided by the elite Revolutionary Guard Corps.

Reuters reports the Turkish army on Monday shelled sites in northern Syria in response to cross-border rocket fire that hit a Turkish town, a government official said. Rockets from Syria landed inside Turkey's southeastern border town of Kilis, injuring at least four people, security sources said. It was not immediately clear whether the rockets had come from Syrian territory controlled by Islamic State.

April 08, 2016

The Associated Press reports a senior Egyptian al-Qaida figure fighting in Syria was killed in a U.S. drone strike this week, the latest to be killed in such attacks in Syria, a Syrian opposition monitoring group and relatives said Friday. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Rifai Ahmad Taha was killed in a strike Tuesday in the northwestern Idlib province. Before joining al-Qaida, Taha was a top figure in Egypt's notorious militant group Gamaa Islamiya, which massacred 58 foreign tourists in the ancient Egyptian city of Luxor in 1997. He was also allied with Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan.

The Washington Post reports the Syrian government has freed an American freelance photographer who was abducted after traveling to the country in 2012, according to two U.S. officials.Kevin Patrick Dawes, 33, from San Diego, was released following many months of negotiations, said the officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the details of Dawes’s release have not yet been made public. The U.S. State Department had taken the lead on winning Dawes’s release, which took place in the last few days, according to a State Department official. An official said the Syrians handed Dawes over to Russia authorities, who then flew him out of Syria. Russia has been one of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s biggest backers.

April 07, 2016

Al Jazeera reports more than 300 staff at a cement factory near Damascus have been kidnapped after an attack earlier this week by Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS), Syrian state TV said on Thursday. Hundreds of employees at the Al Badia Cement company were taken by ISIL fighters from a factory in the town of Dumayr, 50km east of the Syrian capital, the report quoted the industry ministry as saying. It added the workers' employer had lost all contact with them.

Reuters reports Syrian rebel forces on Thursday took over most of a town near the Turkish border that had been a stronghold of Islamic State, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and a rebel source said. The monitor said factions fighting under the banner of the Free Syrian Army, some of whom are supplied with arms by Turkey and other foreign backers, had captured most of the previously IS-held town of al-Rai in northern Aleppo province.

April 06, 2016

The Associated Press reports the first Syrian family to be resettled in the U.S. under a speeded-up "surge operation" for refugees left Jordan on Wednesday for Kansas City, Missouri, to start a new life. Ahmad al-Abboud, who is being resettled with his wife and five children, said he is thankful to Jordan, where he has lived for three years after fleeing Syria's civil war. But the 45-year-old from Homs, Syria, said he was ready to build a better life in the U.S. "I'm happy. America is the country of freedom and democracy, there are jobs opportunities, there is good education, and we are looking forward to having a good life over there," al-Abboud said.

April 05, 2016

The New York Times reports Islamist rebels in Syria shot down a government fighter jet and captured its pilot in the country’s north on Tuesday, anti-government activists said. Videos posted online showed what appeared to be a jet catching fire and smashing into the ground, as well as rebels surrounding and insulting the pilot, who had parachuted safely to the ground. An activist in one video from the site said the pilot was now a prisoner of the Nusra Front, al-Qaeda’s affiliate in Syria.

BBC News reports state media in Syria have accused militants from so-called Islamic State (IS) of using mustard gas against government forces in the north-east. Troops came under fire at an air base which IS has been trying to capture in Deir al-Zour, they say. Meanwhile, rebels have shot down a Syrian fighter plane over the province of Aleppo. Unconfirmed reports say militants from Nusra Front have captured one of the crew alive.

April 04, 2016

Reuters reports a U.S. air strike in northwest Syria on Sunday hit a meeting of senior al-Qaeda officials at which prominent leader Abu Firas al-Suri was present, the Pentagon spokesman said on Monday. The U.S. military is still assessing whether al-Suri died in the strike, said the spokesman, Peter Cook. He declined to say whether the strike was carried out by a manned or unmanned aircraft. "We deemed that he (al-Suri)was present at that meeting and we're trying to determine if he has been removed from the battlefield," Cook said.

BBC News reports Syrian forces and their allies have retaken the central town of al-Qaryatain from so-called Islamic State (IS), dealing a further strategic blow to the militant group, state media say. It comes days after IS was pushed out of the nearby ancient city of Palmyra. IS captured al-Qaryatain in August, and abducted hundreds of residents, including dozens of Christians. Many were later freed. A monitoring group said there were still pockets of fighting in the town. The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said on Sunday there were still IS fighters in the eastern parts of the town, but that they were withdrawing

April 01, 2016

BBC News reports Turkey has illegally forced thousands of refugees to return to Syria, a report by Amnesty International says. The group says about 100 Syrians have been sent back to their war-torn country every day since mid-January in breach of international law. Amnesty says its report exposes the flaws in a recent deal between the EU and Turkey aimed at stemming the flow of refugees arriving in Greece. Turkey has denied sending back any refugees against their will. The Amnesty report comes just days before Turkey is expected to receive the first migrants returned from Greece under the deal with the EU. On Friday the UN called for safeguards before any migrants were returned.

March 28, 2016

Reuters reports Syria is willing to take part in an international coalition against terrorism but only if the United States will work with Damascus in a way it has not done so far, the Syrian envoy to Geneva peace talks said on Monday. "The (U.S.-led) international coalition did not succeed in Syria because it did not coordinate with the regime. Russia was successful because it coordinated with us," Bashar Ja'afari said in an interview with Lebanon-based al-Mayadeen TV. "We are for the creation of an international coalition against terrorism, but in coordination with the Syrian government. We have no objection to working with America as long as it is done in coordination with Syria," Ja'afari said.

Reuters reports fighting between Islamic State and the al Qaeda-linked Nusra Front spread from Syria into Lebanon's northern Bekaa Valley region on Monday, a security source and the state news agency said. Eighteen Nusra Front members were killed and six were taken prisoner during the clashes, and 14 Islamic State members were also killed, the security source said. The fighting began on Sunday near the Syrian town of Jrajeer in the Qalamoun mountains near the Syrian-Lebanese border, before spreading toward the Lebanese towns of Ras Baalbek and Arsal, the source said.

March 25, 2016

Reuters reports Islamic State fighters were on the retreat in the strategic Syrian city of Palmyra on Friday, as the United States said it probably killed several senior leaders of the militant group this week including its top finance officer. The double blow to the hardline Islamist group in its self-declared caliphate, which covers huge areas of Syria and Iraq, came three days after Islamic State suicide bombers killed 31 people in Brussels, the worst such attack in Belgian history. Syrian soldiers fighting to retake the desert city of Palmyra from Islamic State forces recaptured its old citadel on Friday, various media reported. The citadel overlooks some of the most extensive ruins of the Roman empire

The New York Times reportsthe United States this week killed a top Islamic State commander in Syria as part of a spate of military actions targeting the terrorist group’s leadership and explosives caches, Defense Secretary Ashton B. Carter said on Friday. The killing of a top commander, Abd al-Rahman Mustafa al-Qaduli, who is also known by other names, comes as the United States is having increased success targeting the Islamic State’s leadership. Last week, Defense Department officials concluded that American strikes had killed the group’s minister of war, Omar al-Shishani.

March 24, 2016

Reuters reports Secretary of State John Kerry, ahead of a meeting with Vladimir Putin, said the United States and Russia must work together to end the war in Syria despite their differences, and called for a further reduction in violence and more aid deliveries. Russia and the United States have emerged as the two outside powers with a decisive say in what happens next in Syria's five year-old civil conflict. Ahead of talks with the Russian leader in Moscow, Kerry said a fragile partial truce had cut levels of violence, but he wanted to see a further reduction plus greater flows of aid.

The New York Times reports Syrian government troops and allied militias, backed by intensive Russian airstrikes, battled Islamic State militants on Thursday on the edge of Palmyra, the desert city they are seeking to retake from the group along with its majestic ancient ruins, Syrian state news media and residents said. The battle, raging for weeks, carries deep symbolic significance, after Islamic State militants blew up some of Palmyra’s most important ancient structures, causing irrevocable damage to the Unesco World Heritage site. Palmyra also occupies a strategic crossroads between the Islamic State’s territory in the east and the more populated coastal areas.

March 22, 2016

Reuters reports the Syrian opposition said on Tuesday there was no common ground with the government after more than a week of peace talks, accusing Damascus of renewing sieges and stepping up barrel bombings on civilians. "We are not finding any common ground in the paper submitted by the government to U.N. special envoy (Staffan de Mistura)," said Asaad al-Zoubi, head of the main opposition council's delegation. He said the government had increased the number of sieges from 12 to 25 and stepped up a barrel bombing campaign over recent days.

March 21, 2016

Reuters reports the United States on Monday rejected Russia's call for an urgent meeting over violations of Syria's three-week cessation of hostilities, saying that its concerns were already being handled in a constructive manner. Russia's general staff of the armed forces proposed on Monday to hold an urgent meeting with U.S. representatives to agree on the mechanism of controlling the ceasefire in Syria, saying it would act unilaterally starting from March 22 if it gets no response. "We have seen the media reports on alleged Russian concerns over ceasefire violations. Whoever is making such statements must be misinformed, because these issues have been discussed at length already, and continue to be discussed, in a constructive manner," a U.S. official told Reuters in Geneva.

March 18, 2016

The New York Times reports Hassan Aboud, a feared Islamic State commander and double amputee who led the jihadist group’s rank and file in a string of prominent battles in Syria, died Wednesday from wounds received in a battle near Aleppo roughly two weeks ago, a former aide and one of Aboud’s townspeople said. Aboud, in his 30s, was admired by jihadists but despised by many Syrian rebels and activists, who accused him of betrayal and of organizing an assassination campaign against rebel leaders with whom he had collaborated before publicly defecting to the Islamic State in 2014.

March 17, 2016

The Associated Press reports Secretary of State John Kerry determined Thursday that the Islamic State group is committing genocide against Christians and other minorities in Iraq and Syria, meeting a congressional deadline for a decision. The declaration, while long sought by Congress and human rights groups, changes little. It does not obligate the United States to take additional action against IS militants and does not prejudge any prosecution against its members. A day after the State Department said Kerry would miss the deadline because he needed to gather evidence and act deliberatively, Kerry said he had completed his review and determined that Christians, Yazidis and Shiite groups are victims of genocide and crimes against humanity by IS militants.

March 16, 2016

The New York Times reports the first group of Russian fighter jets left Syria on Tuesday, the Defense Ministry said, a day after President Vladimir V. Putin ordered the withdrawal of the “main part” of his country’s forces.The jets flew home after the Russian Air Force contingent began loading equipment and making other technical preparations necessary to start the withdrawal, the ministry said in a statement. The technical staff at the Hmeymim air base near Latakia, Syria, “began to prepare the aircraft for the long-range flights to the Russian Federation,” the ministry said in a statement on its website and on Facebook.